an extended fashion. That book teachesrnus much about Mozart as well as aboutrnJane Austen; but even better it demonstratesrnsomething vital about the culturernof the day as suggested in the constructionsrnof two great artists. It remains onernof the best books ever written about literaturernand music.rnEmily Bronte and Beethoven: RomanticrnEquilibrium in Fiction and Music (1986)rnis a companion volume of equal finishrnand an essential study of Romanticism.rnNo volume I have ever encountered—rnuntil this new one—matches its explorationrnof the phenomenology of the Romanticrnimagination. In that sense, itrnanticipates Wallace’s extended treatmentrnof Herman Melville and J.M.W.rnTurner, with the obvious difference that,rnthis time around, the analogy with literaturernis grounded in a different field ofrnart. In his book on Bronte, he showedrnhow Beethoven can be seen not only as arnmodel for Heathcliff but also as a powerfulrnand liberating force—a musicalrnShakespeare. Similady, in this study ofrnMelville, Wallace presents Turner as arnnonliterary imaginative power, one alsornin competition with the Elizabethanrnplaywright.rnMelville & Turner is an exhaustive explorationrnof the wodd of graphic art andrnart criticism in Anglo-American culturernin the first half of the 19th century.rnReading Melville’s mind, it shows,rnthrough his recreation of Turner’s consciousnessrnin his own work, his relationshiprnto the art world and his response byrnword-painting. Turner’s oils, water colors,rnand prints are exhaustivcK’ exploredrnas keys, analogues, and inspirations forrnMelville’s scenes, images, and rhetoricalrnflights. We are also shown the largerrncontext of literary comment on art, andrnMelville’s awareness of the art worldrnto which he was introduced by EvertrnDuyckinck. Wallace discusses Melville’srnreading and its influences on his prose.rnRuskin’s Modern Painters I, Eastlake’srnContributions to the Literature of the FinernArts, and Hazlitt’s Sketches of the PrincipalrnPicture Galleries in England arc onkrnthree of the strongest presences thatrnWallace glosses for their hold onrnMelville’s mind.rnThe focus on graphic art and aestheticrntheory is strong enough to forestallrnanother and more conventional awareness.rnPerhaps the climax of Wallace’srnargument is to identify the characterrnBulkington, who disappears early inrnMoby-Dick, as a covert transmogrificationrnof Turner himself. But as with thern”boggy, soggy, squitchy picture” Ishmaelrnearly encounters, such episodes can bernaccounted for to some degree in terms ofrnliterary models. The famous oil paintingrnsurely owes a lot to Turner’s whalingrnpaintings, but it is also a traditional epicrnfigure of ekphrasis—the work of art withinrnthe poem. The obvious examplesrnfrom Homer and Vergil were also onrnMelville’s mind. Bulkington owes a lotrnto Vergil’s Palinurus, and therefore to thernHomeric precedent in the Odyssey—rnMelville cues us that he is vTiting anrnepic by recapitulating epic forms and actions.rnBut of course Wallace does not denyrnany such truth. Rather he shows elaboratelyrnand decisively the effects ofrnMelville’s submersion in the world of artrnand the shadow of Turner;rnMelville’s praise of the “infiniternobscure” of Hawthorne’s (andrnShakespeare’s) “back-ground”rnbrings his “Mosses” essay evenrncloser to Ruskin’s mode of praisingrnTurner (and Shakespeare) inrnModern Painters. So docs the examplernhe uses to illustrate thernRuskinian truth that “it is thernleast part of genius that attractsrnadmiration.” Of Shakespeare’srn”endless commentators and critics,”rnthere are a “few” who “seemrnto have remembered or even perceived,rnthat the immediate productsrnof a great mind are not sorngreat, as that undeveloped (andrnsometimes undevelopable) vetrndimly-discernable greatness, tornwhich these immediate productsrnare but the infallible indices.” ForrnMelville, “it is those deep far-awayrnthings in him; those occasionalrnflashings-forth of the intuitivernTruth in him; those short quickrnprobings at the very axis of reality:rn—these are the things thatrnmake Shakespeare, Shakespeare.”rnThese same qualities, in ModernrnPainters, make Turner, Turner.rnThese, too, are the qualities thatrnmake Melville, Meh’ille, especiallyrnin Moby-Dick.rnWallace’s Melville & Turner is not onlyrna grand instruction in the achievementrnof two great explorers, one in thernliterary, the other in the graphic, arts, itrnis a towering demonstration of what isrnmeant by “the Sublime.” Though thisrnstudy greatly enriches our understandingrnspecifically of Melville and Turner, I canrnthink of no other work that more preciselyrnshows how the Romantic anticipatesrnthe Modern. Thar she blows!rnRobert K. Wallace has written a whale ofrna book about the consciousness behindrnthe great American novel.rn].0. Tate is a professor of English atrnDowling College on Long Island.rnAlmost an Idolrnbv H.W.Crocker IIIrnStonewall: A Biography of GeneralrnThomas}. Jacksonrnby Byron FarwellrnNew York: W. W. Norton & Company;rn512 pp., $29.95rnWhy does the South adorernStonewall Jackson? He was not arnparticularlv lovable man. And he wasrncertainly not a romantic, dashing cavalier,rnlike Jeb Stewart; a stainless aristocratrncalmly daring all the odds, like Robert E.rnLee; or even a wizard of the saddle, likernBedford Forrest. Yet at Stone Mountain,rnGeorgia—the Confederacy’srnMount Rushmore—it is Jackson who isrnmemorialized, with Lee and JeffersonrnDavis: the odd, eccentric, dour, sternrnPresbyterian, who during the invasion ofrnMarvland “locked himself in the parlorrnto write a dispatch to Lee and to escapernthe admiring crowds, [who] would notrnbe denied. They called to him throughrnthe shutters and doors. They pulledrnhairs from his horse’s tail until a staff officerrndrove them away. . . . After a shutterrnyvas broken and the windows werernendangered, Jackson gave up and admittedrnthe mob, mostly women and children,rnwho swarmed over him, throwingrnred and white roses. . . . ‘Really, ladies,’rnhe protested, ‘this is the first time I wasrnever surrounded by the enemy.'” It isrnalso the litigious, unyielding, roughvisagedrnhero, who, a month afterrnAntietam, was accosted by a youngrnmother who w anted him to bless her 18-rnmonth-old son;rnJackson, astride [his mount]rnSorrel, seemed no more surprised,rn38/CHRONICLESrnrnrn
January 1975July 26, 2022By The Archive
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